The Wordsmith's Flower
by Buddhacide
Summary: Story by request, written for a kind reader. In her second year of literature studies, Sei lands a deal with a publisher to write her first novel. With Sachiko graduated and gone, the new Red Rose, third-year Yumi, is invited to serve as Sei's inspiration. What can Rosa Chinensis offer the novelist? Coffee? Chocolate? Or perhaps they owe each other more with some overdue feelings.
1. First Draft

**- THE WORDSMITH'S FLOWER -**

* * *

Story by request. Sei lands a deal with a publisher to write her first novel. With Sachiko gone, the new Red Rose, third-year Yumi, is invited to serve as Sei's inspiration. What can Rosa Chinensis offer the novelist? Coffee? Chocolate? Or maybe the two owe each other more with some overdue feelings.

* * *

A/N: My apologies for starting this while I'm still doing Wars of the Roses, but this is a story written on request for a kind reader. The rules were:

1. It had to be Yumi x Sei (this pairing seems to be gaining popularity, and it's thanks to the efforts of other shippers... I'm looking at you, SaTT XP).

2: It had to be grounded more in the canon. No outlandish, over-the-top carnage allowed. =.=

So here it is. I will be in India from the 23rd to the 3rd so I'll be delayed slightly for following chapters. To my treasured reader who asked for this (I do hope you see this, this is for you! XD) and anyone else who might enjoy it, thanks for reading I hope this offering does justice to Yumi x Sei. ^.^

* * *

**- First Draft -**

**- Memories of that Precious Summer Afternoon -**

* * *

_Late afternoon, sunset. Yumi's third year at Lillian_

"You don't become a writer to make money. You write because you're cocky enough to make a career out of your opinions."

"In that case, isn't a novelist even more arrogant? She reckons people should spend their precious time reading stuff she's made up."

The English literature student with a mop of short light hair gnawed at the butt of her Kawecosports fountain pen, a pitch-black, elegantly crafted piece of German penmanship she had ordered online. Oh yes, she deserved it. In her mind, only a decent-quality pen could accompany her on this glorious journey. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she stared at the blank sheets and the grid boxes that awaited her inspired wordsmithing - a twenty-first century Murasaki Shikibu in the making.

But the voice behind her back, behind her small swivel-chair, was distracting her.

"So if you're going to be a writer, you had better have something good for the people indulging you. But this is rubbish. Satou Sei, this is a pretentious mess that needs some serious rewriting."

The budding novelist felt her mind go blank at the words. "What did you say?" she challenged, mock-angrily.

Mizuno Youko, her best friend, closest ally, and fierce advocate, shrugged. "This is unreadable."

"_Gah_." Sei let go of her pen and threw up her hands at Youko's blunt critique. "Give me some credit! I'm a second year at Lillian University and I've already got a job! Amidst this recession!"

Youko just looked at her pointedly.

"Well, I guess technically it _is_ just an internship," added Sei reluctantly, her voice falling to a mutter.

"Unpaid," added Youko.

"I'll get the royalties," countered Sei, perking up.

"If it sells at all."

"Have some faith in me," snapped Sei. "Bestseller, maybe not - but come on, it's Bungeishunjuu! I'm pretty sure they're going to help make sure my novel doesn't just keep the shelves warm."

"I'm well aware you've landed an enviable chance with an old and prestigious publisher," sighed Youko. "The fact that they selected you means they're mindful of your talent and potential. But the fact remains - " She gestured at the pile of paper in her hands. " - This sucks."

Sei groaned, her head hitting the desk, treating Youko to a rather unsightly scene of an author at the end of her tether. "Is it already this late? I'm going home, Sei. I need to be back for dinner." She suppressed a groan at Sei's melodramatic antics. "Look, why don't you just hang loose and forget about classes or this internship until tomorrow? It's only been two weeks since Bungeishunjuu signed you on, and a month since the term started again. Monday's always the start of a new week, you can decide how you want to inspire yourself with a better draft then. Don't write without ideas, or you're just going to waffle. Just like how you've done with this steaming pile."

Sei didn't turn around as Youko opened the door and closed it behind her, leaving her to her own thoughts.

"Inspiration..." she whispered to herself, forgetting to swallow for several seconds. She jerked up from her dispirited stupor, wiping hastily at the undignified drool inching lazily down her chin.

"Youko! Yoohoo!" she shouted deliriously, before remembering the former Red Rose had left her house.

She looked down at her sheets of paper. One of them was soaked. Yuck.

"I'm going crazy," she muttered. "I'm telling myself I'm going crazy, ergo, I'm going crazy. Stupid internship."

She knew she didn't mean it. This was actually an amazing step. Bungeishunjuu was one of Japan's oldest surviving publishing houses, and when their representatives had appeared as a guest lecturer at one of her courses and offered the class applications for an unpaid opportunity to publish with them, she had jumped at the chance. It had taken only one year of tertiary studies in English and American Literature to change her attitudes to work - these days she found herself much more proactive in seeking opportunities to plant roots, to sow seeds, to become something she could see herself as for a long time... a novelist, a writer.

She wanted to change herself.

She wanted to make something of the life that, up until her debacle with Shiori, she had frittered and wasted away.

"Shiori. Youko. Shimako..."" she murmured dreamily, remembering those distant days years past.

Those memories of Lillian, and the occasional photo, were all she had left of her high school life. Even her uniform was gone, donated to Lillian for anyone lucky enough to inherit it. She was still a student at Lillian University, but like Youko and Eriko, still had to leave the Rose title and identity forever. Her life was all hers now; she was free, totally free. And the limitlessness of that freedom was somewhat jarring, even frightening. Her Lillian days had never been free, even after her bondage to Shiori's shadow was severed, but they had still been her happiest. Not her most productive, certainly - she couldn't recall writing even a short story or novella back then. But definitely her happiest.

She missed those times. She missed them. She missed the girls.

She looked down despondently at the title she had written on the stained sheet.

_Dreaming Snow_.

She wouldn't get anything done that night. She ended up being too busy watching telly, too busy cooking dinner by herself and preparing her notes for the following day's lectures. She needed inspiration, and it had to come quick. The internship would last only for a semester. The actual writing - and the novel's success - was up to her.

Perhaps it was time to pay a quick visit to Lillian, the most inspiring place of all.

* * *

It was just before the first lesson of the morning. Touko had been busy cleaning up the mess left behind by the two useless first-years - thanks to their blundering and incompetence, the registry for the culture festival's participants was completely out of order. Now Rosa Chinensis would have to personally take over and correct the mess of papers. "We're so sorry," squeaked the panicking juniors, bowing frantically before the Red bouton, whose hands were planted angrily on her hips. "It won't happen again!"

"Not good enough," snapped Touko, stomping a reproachful foot on the floor of the long corridor. "Now it's more work for Rosa Chinensis! Why did I even bother asking you to help if you were just going to delay our progress?"

"Please forgive us," bawled one of the first-year students, her voice cracking and tears beginning to well in the face of Touko's inquisitorial, ruthless interrogation.

Touko bristled. "Forgive? A blunder like this? From _you_?" the self-satisfied girl asked incredulously, as if there was no more audacious suggestion in the world.

"Touko, no more! It's alright," reproached the authoritative voice of Rosa Chinensis. Touko whipped around, her angry face turning into a contrite and apologetic one almost instantly. The two girls gasped in awe at the beauty standing before them.

Since Ogasawara Sachiko's graduation, the incumbent Red Rose had lost the pigtails that once made her look so innocent and childish. How that seemed an age away from her current profile, eighteen summers, fresh, friendly, and violently attractive. More regal than before in her dark green uniform, her dark brown hair now draped past her shoulders, her tresses not as long as her predecessor's but coming quite close. Her lips were fuller, thicker, richer. Her brown eyes, while still open and fresh, had been tempered with the wisdom and guile that all Roses must possess, no matter which colour. "I'll sort it out. I won't let you two off so easily, though - Touko will find you something else to help with."

The two girls squeaked helplessly, and Touko rubbed her hands in glee. "With pleasure, onee-sama," she sniffed.

The first-year pair scurried away, and Rosa Chinensis en bouton turned to look at her grande soeur. "It still feels surreal to see people address you with such awe... 'Rosa Chinensis'," she mused. "I know it's only been a few months, but it doesn't quite suit you."

"I know," admitted Yumi, mature enough to know that the jibe did not warrant a reproach. Touko's honesty and frankness didn't make her many friends, but to Rosa Chinensis, such bluntness was a blessing. Touko might treat her almost cruelly, as sadistically as when she tortured Yumi during her most difficult time in her first year. But as far as Rosa Chinensis was concerned, Touko was the perfect petite soeur. She would make a fine Red Rose, perhaps even more fearsome than her predecessor Sachiko. She flicked back her long brown hair. "It's bizarre to me, too."

It was even stranger that Sachiko was no longer here anymore, no longer here as the Red Rose of the school.

Yumi's cellphone began to ring. Forcing herself out of her reverie, she flipped out the screen, peering at the Unknown Number. Class was starting soon, she should have known better than to forget to turn it off. Telemarketers? Sighing, she received the call and brought the phone to her ear. "Sorry, I'm not interested - "

"Hey, Yumi-chan!"

It took several seconds for Yumi to work out who it was.

"Yumi?"

Rosa Chinensis froze, her expression suddenly still, her smile lost.

That voice.

Oh, God. That voice.

Drawn up short, her heart seized by a hundred different melodies, Rosa Chinensis' trembling hand pushed the phone close to her ear. Touko stared at her grande soeur in concern, but she wouldn't understand. Yumi turned away, avoiding Touko's gaze (one glance and Touko could instantly deduce Yumi's heart). "Rosa... Rosa Gigantea?"

"That would be Shimako these days," came the smarty-pants voice. "It's Sei. Sei!"

What an eternity, what a void of time it had been since that siren's words reached her ears.

Yumi bit her lip. "_Gokigenyou_, Sei-san."

"I'm at the school, you know! Right by the gate. Are you free to see me?"

"Don't you have lectures?" asked Yumi, more curtly than she intended.

"Not today. I'm even more of a bum than two years ago, Yumi-chan. Can't you afford to even drop me a hello? Or..." Sei's voice grew more uncertain. "You're not in the mood?"

Yumi closed her eyes. "Fine. I will be at the gates. Not now. At recess. So you'll have to wait. But don't be late. I'm the one who's got a timetable."

"Oh, right. Okay," came Sei's voice, and she sounded rather disappointed the the lacklustre welcome. "See ya."

Yumi hung up, pocketing her phone. She bit her lip already regretting that she had agreed to see her. She knew why Sei had been expecting a bit more, but she didn't know what to do.

It hurt. It hurt to remember that summer afternoon, the day the idol of her generation tried to kiss her. Oh yes, she had kissed her back, kissed her like she had never dared to kiss anyone else, not even onee-sama. She hadn't stepped foot into Sei's former classroom since then. She was afraid she would cry if she did.

Two questions immediately popped into her morose mind:

One: now that Sachiko had graduated and was no longer a student at Lillian, and therefore no longer soeur, did she still count as Yumi's grande soeur? Did Yumi count as Sachiko's petite soeur, as her bouton?

Two: Indeed, why had she the guts back then to kiss Sei, but not Sachiko? She had never thought about that before.

The last couple of months had been hard on her thanks to Sachiko's departure. Everything had been thrown off-track - her plans with her, Kashiwagi's presence in Sachiko's life, and the pressures of the Ogasawara family on Sachiko herself.

And Sei had quite the knack for making things yet more complicated.

* * *

Sei wasn't sure what to think as she waited and waited. What had happened? Yumi's voice was so much more womanly, so much more mature. It also sounded a lot less enthusiastic than she expected. This wasn't the welcome she had imagined. But there was no longer any time to think, as the long-haired girl walked into sight. Sei felt herself exhaling harder than usual as their eyes met, and she could see Yumi's long, freely-flowing brown tresses.

"Rosa Chinensis," murmured the former White Rose.

Yumi stopped and stared at the tall woman before her. Once the latter was a girl, but now she was really a woman in a white shirt and jeans. Yumi had faith she was catching up (slowly), but Sei remained, as usual, somehow just out of reach. _A grown woman_. That sounded so much more seductive than anything Sei could have thrown at Yumi when she was the White Rose. "I'm right here, Yumi-chan," said this grown woman, her face full of compassion, affection, and the understanding she reserved just for Yumi, her special girl. Yumi knew this understanding was uniquely for her, she just knew it.

"Sei... Sei-san..." Yumi felt her bottom lip wobble, but she gulped hard, blinking angrily and staring straight past Sei's eyes, focusing on the trees and gate behind her head. "Welcome back to your alma mater. As you can see, it is my third and final year of high school. Sorry for keeping you waiting. May I take you somewhere? The headmistress's office, perhaps?"

"I can tell," murmured Sei, rolling her gaze over Yumi's long hair. "Nah," she then shrugged, catching Yumi off-guard again. "I already dropped by my old classroom. Where it all ended with me."

"No," said Rosa Chinensis calmly. "Where it all started."

Now it was Sei's turn to blink. "I don't understand."

"Of course you don't understand," said Rosa Chinensis, her foot turning to walk in the direction of the main block.

"Yumi, wait! You're leaving already?" called Sei, surprised - and somewhat afraid. What was going on? This was hardly going according to plan.

Yumi stared sharply at Sei. "You don't know what it means to live in the embrace of a warm shadow, a shadow so tender it leaves a mark on every girl it touches. But it is only a shadow. Just as Shimako-san, Noriko-chan, and Shizuka-sama searched for your shadow in Rome, so too do I live in your shadow, touched and kissed in my most vulnerable corners but unable to return the shadow's caress."

Yumi turned on her heel and excused herself from Sei's presence, leaving the writer in a stunned state of discombobulation.

* * *

_After school_

The coffee tasted bitter. To the former White Rose, just one teaspoon of sugar was plenty. But Yumi needed two and a half to make it just bearable. "Sorry for chasing after you," said a smiling Sei, gazing at the reluctant senior student across from the cafe's round table. No one noticed them, and neither did they pay any attention to their fellow patrons. The quiet chatter around them was nothing compared to their conversation in the present moment. "I really am. Apparently, you're not really interested in talking to me, let alone catching up."

"Well, you caught me anyway. Don't you have class?" asked Yumi, adjusting her uniform's necktie. Her mannerisms and words had lost the politeness that once characterised her sometimes timid personality. But even if Yumi was not absolutely nervous about seeing Sei now, she could justify it by reminding herself of Sei's non-status at Lillian Girls' Academy. Sei was no longer a member of the school, let alone playing an executive role. It was Yumi who had reached the zenith of student influence and authority. She, the Red Rose! Now, they could speak as true equals.

"You've been asking me that an awful lot," sighed Sei. She lifted her eyes from Yumi and looked down at her white cup. She knew it would be strange speaking to Yumi as an equal, but not as awkward as this. "Have I done something to annoy you?"

Yumi smiled stiffly. "It's wonderful to see you again, it really is. Is there something I can help you with?"

She didn't sound convincing in the slightest, but Sei decided to give up on finding out the reasons for such a frosty reception for now. "I'll cut to the chase." She leaned forward, her arms pressing on the table. "I've been signed on for my first book," she said plainly. She was going to tease Yumi with some suspense and a flourish, but the situation clearly didn't merit her original plan. "Bungeishunjuu has given me an internship I can use to write a novel with."

"Congratulations, Sei-san," complimented Yumi robotically, wrenching her stiff lips into a smile. "You're now a novelist, then. A wordsmith. It's so wonderful to see you pursuing your career so passionately."

"So here goes," continued Sei, taking a deep breath. She stared into Yumi's uncertain eyes again. "I'm feeling drained and unmotivated. So I need inspiration. And I want inspiration from you."

Yumi stared back at her, gobsmacked. "Excuse me?"

Sei breathed a sigh of relief to herself. So it took a bit of daring to shake Yumi out of her icy cool... just like her predecessor. Things still weren't as they were last year, or two years ago, but at least she had managed to be the audacious heroine Yumi always looked up to. Maybe they had just forgotten what it was like to actually be in each other's presence again. "My house is empty during the day, and most of my classes are in the morning. My schedule is actually pretty close to your timetable. When you're done with council work, drop by and make me coffee."

"Only you can tell someone to make you coffee so shamelessly," blurted Yumi, not knowing why she was laughing so shrilly. "Only you, Sei-san!"

"What do you say, Yumi-chan? Oh, sorry - I meant, Rosa Chinensis," drawled a smirking Sei, the last two words rolling off her tongue in that sensual, deeply feminine way only she could manage without looking or sounding ridiculous. She knew the air was beginning to feel lighter. Yumi had finally stopped giggling and now she was silent, her eyelashes peeking behind brown bangs.

"Tell me," insisted the older woman.

Yumi glanced at Sei's warm grey eyes. She smiled shyly.

"You look lonely, Rosa Chinensis," observed the budding novelist, her voice noticeably gentler. She felt relief washing over her. Seeing Yumi smile made all the difference. She stopped herself from mentioning Sachiko. Half of her wanted to bring up Yumi's former grande soeur, but something in her gut warned her that to even speak her name now would spoil everything. She raised her arm hesitantly, and for a moment it had stopped. But when their eyes met again, and Yumi did not move, that slender arm reached over the table and touched the soft cheek of the Red Rose.

"How perceptive of you, Sei-san," replied Yumi, looking away as she felt Sei's skin against hers.

The writer paused, gazing at Yumi's downcast eyes for several quiet minutes. The latter could smell the plasticky, cheap cafe coffee, and just by virtue of it being sipped at by Sei, it smelled wonderful.

"I missed you, Yumi-chan."

"Me too," blurted Yumi, unable to mask her honesty any longer. "I still miss you." Blushing, she stared up into Sei's warm silver eyes. She felt those irises enveloping with their owner's kindness, with the same warmth of the flickering sun that shone in that old classroom they bade farewell in. She wanted to speak, but she was too conscious of Sei's finger and thumb nestling her chin. It was infuriating how much she had changed since Sachiko's departure, yet how little her complicated feelings for Sei had shifted. Why did she still melt in Sei's caress? Why did she hang on every word she said?

Was she now about to hang on every word she wrote?

"Yay or nay?" murmured Sei.

"Hey?" sputtered Rosa Chinensis, flushing a deeper shade of beetroot.

Sei smiled a crafty smile. How blessed she felt, that their goodbye hadn't been final. Now _here_ was something she could work with! "So it's settled, then. Time to take the next step, sweetheart. You're going to provide me with inspiration, Rosa Chinensis. No - you're going to _be_ my inspiration."

* * *

**NEXT DRAFT: DAY ONE AT SEI'S. COFFEE. COUCHES. THE MEMORIES GROW MORE PAINFUL.**


	2. Second Draft

**- THE WORDSMITH'S FLOWER -**

* * *

Hello and welcome back to _The Wordsmith's Flower_, an impromptu, easygoing story written on behalf of a kind reader (and of course, for anyone interested). It's Sei's second year as a literature student and already she is embarking on a serious prospective career as a novelist. To the incumbent Red Rose, the reborn and now very beautiful, mature Yumi, Sei is like a ghost back from the dead. Now Sei is back to haunt her, so it seems, with the provocative invitation to stay at her house every week - every day, if Yumi so prefers - to provide some form of vague inspiration for her forthcoming novel. Here, Sei will bare all her professional and personal vulnerabilities to Yumi, who will in turn be the muse for Sei's first masterpiece and opus.

No harm in an intimate reunion between a Red Rose whose gentle face hides a heart of passion, and an older writer whose every word is pure magic... right?

By the way, thank you for your reviews, I'm very happy to know that the reader who originally requested this seems satisfied with the current direction. Unleash the critiques if you feel I'm not doing justice to the characters. Stay happy and creative! That is why we dream, read, and write. ^.^

* * *

**- Second Draft - **

**- Coffee First -**

* * *

For every young lady, there are three words that leave an impact on her forever, whether for better or worse. They might be:

"I love you."

Or, "Maria bless you."

Or, "This is over."

Today, Yumi pressed the doorbell to Sei's house, she heard her three most important words for the day. It was, "Come on in." She could see Sei's welcoming eyes, those eyes that were wandering briefly over Yumi's figure to enjoy those new modest curves that were springing out of nowhere post-Sachiko. Oh, what the former head of the Red family was missing out! But as Sei opened the door for her smiling guest, she wondered why Yumi had been strangely silent and secretive about her beloved grande soeur since their reunion. Naturally, Shimako and Yoshino were her closest friends and colleagues now, so regular contact and collaboration was only expected. But not one peep about the woman who shaped her into the Rose she was today. Or perhaps, mused Sei, that she had overestimated the influence Sachiko exerted over the surprisingly strong and independent Yumi? She had tamed Touko, after all - something Sachiko could never have done in her wildest dreams.

"You're welcome here, every day of the week. I don't have foundation courses this term anyway, so I'm free to stay back whenever I feel like, which is going to be most of the time. I'm happy to take you around Lillian College too, we could grab some classically crap uni dosh there. You're looking good, by the way," observed Sei, admiring Yumi's skinny jeans and red jacket (which was notably slimmer and more flattering than the ones she once donned).

"As are you," answered Yumi politely, "although I wish you'd come up with a better colour match than white and blue all the time," she added, eyes pressing against Sei's white, sleeveless top, before moving down to her denim shorts that exposed most of her legs. Yumi's eyes clouded over briefly, and Sei wondered what crossed Yumi's mind as the latter indulged in her figure ever so briefly, reminding herself of what kind of woman had touched her, kissed her, treasured and guided her, throughout her school years. Sei began walking towards the staircase, and Yumi followed, crossing the threshold and following her past the door and onto the floorboards. She couldn't help watching the back of Sei's slim legs and the soles of her feet, taking turns to press upon the brown wood.

"I brought some white coffee and chocolates," offered Yumi absently, staring at Sei's shapely calves and thighs, not to mention her slender arms flaunting themselves past her sleeveless top. "Like old times, Rosa Gigantea."

"Awesome, Rosa Chinensis!" cried Sei, stretching high her stiff arms and yawning reflexively. "That's what I've been needing all along to get through this mental block, you know? I've barely started conceptualising this whole thing and I'm already stuck. You're my heavy artillery against the pressures of this internship, Yumi-chan."

Yumi flicked back her long hair. "Flatterer."

Sei now lived with Katou Kei, a fellow university student, so everything could have been read as an innocent gesture on Sei's part. But the novelist hadn't been lying; today the two-storey house was quite empty indeed, and looked to be every week while Kei continued attending classes and she holed herself up in her room for the duration of her internship. "The only time I ever leave the house is to get to class or grab something from the _konbini_," said Sei, as if reading Yumi's thoughts, "although I did go out to see Youko, and I wouldn't mind making the effort to catch you at school too."

Although she smiled, Yumi didn't feel as amused as she thought she would. These old jokes, these constant pickup lines that once agitated her so and made her hot under the necktie, just seemed corny. Sei really did resemble a perverted _ojii-san_, only much more lovable. It wasn't that Yumi was bored with Sei's lavish attention, and indeed she was pleased they now had a chance to exchange more emails, more texts, more calls, more visits. But Sei's old ways of treating her was too childish. It wasn't enough.

She needed more.

She wanted better, in any sense of the word.

A brief flash of concern crossed Sei's face when she noticed Yumi's unimpressed eyes, but that momentary awkwardness was broken by something worse. Sei had half-turned around and grabbed Yumi's hand - "Come on, up to my room!" she had said eagerly - but Yumi instantly blushed, her forced, composed face shattered by a wildfire of smothered affection and devotion. It was a simple touch, second nature for any pair of girlfriends - yet...

_What was this_? What had happened to their physical spontaneity?

Usually they would have laughed it off, or Sei would have just hugged Yumi and been done with it. Yes, perhaps they would have, a long time ago. This time, after a year apart, they glanced at each other in dry, throaty panic, as if the older woman might as well have farted a nuke. What had happened to Sei's usual mucking around and Yumi's reciprocal games?

"Come up," stuttered Sei after a painful silence, disconcerted by the silken texture of Yumi's skin. She still wasn't used to Yumi's long hair.

"Right," whispered Rosa Chinensis dryly, gingerly sliding her hand out of Sei's flawless, gentle grip.

* * *

_Several strange minutes later_

Yumi looked around Sei's sparse room. It was not extraordinary in any way. If anything, it was disappointing. There was a window that let in bright light, but aside from some cute patterned curtains there was no individual touch. There was no poster, no trophy, not even a framed photo or certificate: no expression of a personality. The only addition that looked relatively recent was a waist-high bookshelf with several volumes of English books. Whatever. She didn't know what to make of it, so she said to the writer, "I think I'll go make you that coffee. Let me prepare the chocolates, too."

"Cheers, Yumi-chan," replied Sei, and Yumi walked briskly out of the room, her bare feet pattering off the carpet and onto the wooden corridor. Sei slumped down onto her pink swivel chair as Yumi's footsteps receded, pressing her forehead on her table and groaning quietly. She ignored the stacks of paper and her fountain pen, which was rolling inconspicuously to one side. This was already not unfolding as she had planned. What was wrong with them? What was wrong with the feelings _between_ them? They were like two complete amateurs fumbling a netball, except that the netball was their joined heart.

_Awwwwwkwaaaarrrd..._

_Why did I call her up here?_

_Why did she agree to come with me_? she wondered, and she thought she could dwell on those thoughts for several moments, but already Yumi had returned, having helped herself to a tray and some crockery in the Satou family's pantry. Sei watched her place one cup of steaming tea to Sei's small desk, before setting aside the tray at a corner on the floor, where there would be no accidents. Rosa Chinensis then slipped off her red jacket, revealing a white tee with a brown teddy bear. The novelist smiled in thanks, but Yumi looked away as she spoke.

"What am I supposed to do here, Sei-san? Just watch you? You need to tell me how I can help. I'm not good at English, let alone any kind of literature. I can just give you ideas, but not much more."

"Well, yeah, talk to me. And I'm going to talk to you, too. Bounce some ideas back between us. Keep me entertained and on my toes."

Yumi planted herself on Sei's bed, across from where Sei sat. She gazed at the surprisingly plain pattern of the blanket folded haphazardly on the mattress. She somehow imagined her covers would be decorated with anime heroines or cartoon aliens. Apparently not. How unexpectedly boring.

Yumi glanced up, and their eyes met again. "So, what's your story about? Maybe we could start with that," she proposed.

"No idea!" declared Sei shamelessly, throwing up her arms.

"Not the best start," replied Rosa Chinensis, and for a brief moment, Sei thought she was looking at a friendlier, sociable clone of Sachiko. "Is there anything you want to do with your writing? What do you want to tell your future readers?"

Sei's expression turned (just a bit) more serious. "My motivation for writing is pretty selfish, actually. In a way, I'm trying to tell a story that can help me leave behind my own old stories. And Youko said that I was good at expressing myself, in good times and bad. So I thought writing might be something worth trying as I left behind the old me."

"_Forest of Thorns_," said Yumi suddenly, staring straight into Sei's grey eyes. "Except with a happy ending. While you didn't write that novel, it represented everything that went wrong with your... your relationship with Shiori-sama." The Red Rose kept her eyes on Sei's kind gaze. "I'm sorry for bringing her up. But it seems that if you want to write, you need to draw up inspiration from your past, too."

"I only remember the snow that night," said Sei quietly, her smile turning sad, although Yumi had a way of easing anyone into talking about the recesses of their past. "The thorns were just a metaphor for how we felt about each other. But the snow was a clearer memory, falling so gently as I waited in vain for Shiori, as I cried in my grande soeur's arms. The snow was still falling by the time I walked home with Youko, just in time to have some drinks for my birthday. So I want this novel to be more... physical. More literal and visceral. That's why I've decided to call my story 'Dreaming Snow'."

"Yes, but you actually haven't written anything else, have you? Except for that corny title, that is," deduced Yumi, and Sei slumped, chuckling.

"Bingo," muttered the university student. "When did you become so perceptive?"

Yumi pursed her lips. "What about you? You told me I was looking lonely last week."

"That's because I really felt it." Sei turned around, sifting through the sheets of paper. "I guess I should try to get something done..."

Yumi tilted her head, innocently defiant. "I'm not cute enough for you?" she teased suddenly. "Are you already done talking, and I should just laze around here until I fall asleep and you shake me up a couple of hours later and shoo me out in time for dinner? Just like how you'd treat a junior high school student?"

Sei glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. "Yumi, you naughty filly. You're growing quite the attitude, aren't you? No, you're very pretty. And you're... no junior freshman. I... I don't know how I should talk to you anymore, in all seriousness. I don't want to talk down to Rosa Chinensis. I guess I want to know if I'm still pretty enough for you, too?"

"Too pretty. Too kind. Kind to the extent of being cruel."

Sei whistled. "What a brave and honest reply. As I said before, you're quite the one for me, too. That's why you're here to give me some ideas about this motif of dreaming snow..."

Yumi stared at the writer once more. "Who do you think I am, Sei-san?" she asked unexpectedly and defiantly. She rose from the bed and made her way over to Sei's swivel chair. Sei's impressed expression became apprehensive. She never used to look uncertain to Yumi's face. Now everything had changed, and she was betraying her uncertainty about this older Yumi fairly often. Yumi stopped only when she was looking directly down at Sei's sitting form - their contrast could not have been greater: one sitting, the other standing, one's blonde hair cut short and subdued, the other's rich brown hair unbound for all to marvel at.

"Where is this going?" asked Sei, almost meekly. She had never heard herself speak like this before.

"Nowhere. I'm just saying that I'm Rosa Chinensis. I've grown up. You should have known I would grow up." Yumi didn't keep her eyes off Sei's faltering pupils, pinning them, immobilising them. For the first time, the maturing girl could feel Sei's body language visibly weaken, cower, submit before the presence that all Red Roses inherited. Sei might be older, wiser, and in a job, but Rosa Chinensis would always be Rosa Chinensis, and while Rosa Gigantea was an equally powerful title, that was the whole point: Sei no longer held it.

She was just an ordinary woman sitting here, straddled by the Red Rose.

"You want me to inspire you? Then you have to look at me. Run your eyes over me, and your words must entangle themselves with mine. Isn't that the point? You have no choice but to make me one of your characters. Only then can I be of any help. Or were you just looking for a maid to serve you coffee?" They hadn't even touched, but Yumi felt herself shivering with a fire she thought had died when Sei left Lillian. "I don't think so. Those days are long over, dear Rosa Gigantea. I won't accept that." Yumi drew down closer, breath warm and inhaling languidly. Her dark brown eyes shimmered. "I would go so far as to say you owe me, Sei-san. Dreaming snow? No. You're going to wake up, Sei-san. You're going to wake up to me. We're going to wake up to each other. The snow is going to melt. And don't you say no, you cocky writer, because you're the one who brought me here."

"Well, no. I was joking about the coffee. I really do need you. Geez, maybe you should be an author, too," sputtered Sei hastily. "You're a bit of a wordsmith too."

Yumi gazed up at Sei's bowed head. "Why have you suddenly become afraid?" she asked cruelly, in an almost taunting manner. Her skinny jeans pressed against Sei's legs. "Has something changed? This isn't the Sei-san I knew."

"Because you're not the Yumi I know," whispered Sei, unable to resist taking the bait. "When did you...?"

Yumi smiled, but to Sei it looked more like a smirk. "Why should I - or anyone - stay the same for you? That's expecting too much, even for someone as fickle as you."

"Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Fukuzawa?" rasped Satou Sei, in a final, likely futile attempt to regain some control of the collapsing house of cards she had built to keep Yumi from wriggling in, long hair dishevelled sensually. But she couldn't. Yumi's power was magnetic, and she had to admit in her heart of hearts that this was just too much fun, disorienting though this new, primal allure might be.

This thrill, this nervousness, was new.

It wasn't like what she had felt for Shiori.

There was no search for redemption, no idea of sin or forgiveness.

This was just pure fun.

Boiling, burning tension unlike any of the cuddling and fondling sessions they had shared before Sei had left Lillian.

"Am I trying to seduce you? I don't think so. But even if I was, my intentions don't really matter anymore. It wouldn't make a difference whether I was just teasing you mercilessly or burning with hunger for you. You shouldn't care whether I'm just an old girlfriend or if you want to make passionate love to me." Yumi's face was fierce, alight with a protective, younger, naive passion Sei had long forgotten. "Don't you have a story to write, Miss Literature?"

Sei gazed up at Yumi, painfully aware of how hot she had become - all over - as their letters and sentences danced with each other. "I made the right choice. You're beautiful, so beautiful. You're the girl I need to complete my novel," she confessed, almost angrily, like she had cheated herself of something that was once hers for the taking... no, these thoughts were crazy, had they been lurking within her all this time, or had they just been awakened? Why now, and why had they been so easy to agitate? So many questions, but Rosa Chinensis wasn't about to let her off easily.

"What you do with these new fires burning in your brain, will be up to you. I'm feeding the fire for you. The fire of yearning, where the pleasure of creativity explodes," whispered Rosa Chinensis, raising her hands. They slowly clasped Sei's face, as if in relishing revenge for how Sei grabbed her wrist just over an hour ago. That rare inferno within cool blue Sei seemed to be igniting her cheeks, which Yumi continued to cradle.

"You live up to your title. You are more than a worthy heir to Sachiko-chan. Red Rose Yumi-chan," whispered the helpless wordsmith.

Fukuzawa Yumi's breath warmed Sei's lips. "Dreaming snow? Let these kindling flames threaten to melt that snow, and shake you out of your reverie. Maybe - just - maybe - then you'll feel compelled to write."

* * *

**NEXT DRAFT: SEI'S INSPIRED TALE BEGINS TO UNFOLD.**

**AND ROSA CHINENSIS FINDS HERSELF AT ITS EPICENTRE.**


	3. Third Draft

**- THE WORDSMITH'S FLOWER -**

* * *

Hello! This is the third instalment of a story I'm writing at request of a idea is simple: people change all the time, but we only understand this at an intellectual level. How will two changing young women come to terms with each other emotionally?

On one hand we have the ever-popular Sei, who has finally more or less made peace with herself and her turbulent identity. Things are going swimmingly, actually - her internship might be unpaid, but it's with a big publishing company and it's going to result in her very first novel. But squaring off against her turbulent feelings is a long-haired beauty, with haunting, kind eyes, with a radical, innocent sensuality that she is utterly unprepared for. Fukuzawa Yumi, Rosa Chinensis - you've never seen Yumi like this before. Nor has Sei.

Sei has a novel to do. It's time to get writing.

* * *

**- Third Draft -**

**- A Story is a Fantasy -**

* * *

She couldn't sleep.

The blonde woman rubbed her sore eyes blearily, sighing as she scratched her nose in the pure, silent, tranquil darkness. The moon was faintly luminous behind her window's curtain, and her blankets lay scattered about her. She swiped up her mobile and rubbed the screen, squinting and recoiling slightly at the sudden burst of light. As her aching retina slowly adjusted, she made out the glaring digital display:

2:24 AM.

She groaned, clenching shut her eyelids and squeezing out some teary residue. "Shit."

She hadn't slept well for the past three evenings.

Sei wasn't one to let people, especially girls and women, occupy her mind for long. Even Shiori hadn't left as lasting a scar on her as her peers thought. Just because she thought it was better for them not to meet again, didn't mean that she regretted everything that had passed. On the contrary; Shiori would remain for her an angel to remember wistfully forever. And with Shizuka, it had been easier. Shizuka was just like her: whimsical but loyal. Her whimsicality protected her against heartbreak by anyone she loved, just like Sei.

But Yumi was anything but whimsical. Yet her loyalty made her radiant, far more radiant than her long brown hair or kissable lips ever could dream of doing. No, Yumi was pretty, to be sure, but it was her inner qualities that gave that critical shine to her outer attractiveness, elevating her above many other girls who had fuller lips or better eyelashes or curvier figures.

It was the same with her book. Sei knew that she could have the nicest-looking cover or the most flowery Victorian language (it was certainly a possibility: this _was_ going to be a book with English themes, after all), but it would lack life and magic without that spark of determination and eloquence that poured a writer's entire life into the pages of a single tome.

"Some inspiration," muttered the former White Rose, rubbing her short hair and running her hand through her mop's tresses. "For once-happy memories to grow so uncertain and painful."

She fumbled away her blanket, and pressed the "off" button on her air conditioner's remote. She rubbed her bare shoulder, sighing and blissfully unaware of her dishevelled beauty. She massaged the ridge of her nose, mulling over the haunting face of Rosa Chinensis. Then she heaved herself off the bed and pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt.

In some ways, Yumi's kind but sharp eyes were even more striking than Sachiko's gaze of cool indifference.

She needed to write - to gather that courage to pen all her being on paper and share it with anyone who will care to read... she never imagined this could have happened to her, the student who denied writing _Forest of Thorns_ and didn't even keep a diary. Sei wobbled over to her desk and turned on the desk lamp. Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light, she opened her notebook (titled "Dreaming Snow"), spinning her Kawecosports pen in her hand as she flipped to where she had stopped last time. Everything in her notebook was a mere sketch, an uncertain fantasy of what could be on the final canvas of her story.

_Knock, knock_.

"Yo. Come in."

A young lady with long but orderly black hair slowly opened the door, peeking within. She squinted at Sei's hunched back, adjusting her spectacles. Sei's housemate was dressed in a set of teacup-patterned pyjamas. "Can't sleep?" she wondered aloud, walking over. She set down a steaming mug on Sei's coffee-stained coaster. "Have some tea for a change."

Sei nodded, not turning around. "Not with this huge project, Kei-babe. It could make or break my entry into the fiction market."

Kei rolled her eyes, peeking over Sei's shoulder onto her notebook. "_Which_ fiction market? As far as I know, you haven't even decided on the genre you're writing."

Sei put her pen to her lips, shaking her head. "That's where you've got it wrong. I _have_ got something."

Kei looked genuinely impressed. "I take back what I said, then. What have you decided on?"

"It's going to be something like... dark fantasy."

Kei blinked, looking at Sei as if the latter had gone slightly mad. "Well, that's bizarre. That really doesn't fit you, I'm sorry to say. Maybe I'm wrong."

"That's the point. My heart is feeling out of whack, Kei. And I'm not a good writer - I can't mask what I'm feeling in the present moment to write something I'm not feeling. So my first novel has to at least be honest and be just as out of whack as I'm feeling. It's the only way... my only chance... to make this novel a piece of work that I won't regret, whether or not it sells."

"Fair enough... but why dark fantasy?" muttered Kei, eyebrow raised. "That's... a peculiar choice for you. I thought you were going to settle for something like romance, or at most a crime mystery." Kei's glasses shone. "You know, something like that novel _Forest of Thorns_. It could have served as inspiration."

Sei glanced up at Kei, grimacing. "Anything but that one," she said calmly, and in that brief denial was the admission that she trusted Kei with her deepest vulnerabilities - quite an achievement for a housemate who had shacked up with her for just over a year. "_Forest of Thorns_ exploited a tragic mystery and the lurid details of a girl's death by drug overdose. My fiasco with Shiori was... much more embarrassing and childish. Nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a spoilt girl's tantrum against the world."

"Then, I ask you again, dear Sei: why dark fantasy?"

"Why, you say," murmured Sei, tapping her notebook page with a finger as Yumi's face forced itself past her shut eyelids. "It's a coping mechanism for me, in a sense." Those strong, shy (but curiously fearless) brown eyes. And that long brown hair: so majestic, totally-not-like-Sachiko's, so kissable -

"Wha - " Sei jerked up from her delusions - for those images, to her horror, were precisely delusions - prompting Kei to jump.

"Geez, Sei, don't scare me like that! I'm not going to disturb you. I'll leave you to your crazy thoughts." Kei squeezed the writer's shoulder and slipped away, letting a stunned Sei rub her forehead in chagrin. "Don't push yourself too hard. It's too early for you to become a female Edgar Allen Poe."

Sei didn't reply as Kei quietly shut the door. Had Yumi penetrated into her consciousness so thoroughly that her haunting smile (and frown) were actually _part of her_? She once loved to tease Rosa Chinensis. Now, it is as if Yumi's very glance, her very presence, was torturing and mocking her.

Karma was, excluding Eriko, truly the bitchiest of bitchy bitches.

Yes, this was why she would write something darker. She wanted to write about how it was possible to love a monster. Not that Yumi was a monster, of course, but these feelings between them were certainly monstrous, primeval, terrifying... and this was Sei's chance to immortalise them. Yes, Yumi the dark princess who had fallen from the light, one hand clasping Sei's waist, the other, her throat. And from behind, the monster stares up and nibbles her flushed neck, before whispering words that will break her in a blushing ear -

Sei let out a quiet grunt, shivering as she lowered her head against her desk. She felt so helpless and awkward, but was glad that Yumi wasn't around.

Her eyes and fists were clenched tightly. What the hell was happening to her?

The wordsmith would write tirelessly into the night. Now she wrote feverishly into the early morning, and it was 6:32am by the time her eyes were watering with exhaustion once again. She crawled back into bed by 8:53am, and wouldn't get up until lunchtime when Kei had come back from classes and kicked her out of her duvet and blankets.

* * *

_Mos Burger. Some random branch in Tokyo_

Youko shifted her eyes across the paper, taking a sip of soda from her straw. "Your use of English is getting pretty good. It's smooth, it's natural, and most of all it didn't look like you were trying too hard. But I'm not supposed to be a critic, remember?"

"Come one. You're all I have," begged Sei. She looked embarrassed, and her burger and fries were largely untouched. "Well, there's the girls in my course, but I haven't been speaking much to them lately."

"I can tell," murmured Youko. "You're growing more interested in Yumi by the day. She's the one who can help you with a breakthrough. And I'll give you this: it's showing in your manuscript."

"Really?" asked Sei eagerly, encouraged to no small degree.

"Yeah." Youko looked up at Sei, and for once, she looked uncomfortable. "Listen..." Sei raised an eyebrow as Youko suddenly blushed. "I hope you're not trying to be Japan's first EL James. Not that we need novelists of her calibre."

"What? Of course not. This is nothing like that bible for abusive stalkers," cried Sei indignantly. "Are you even reading what I'm writing? How does any of my stuff resemble mommy porn?"

"Look, okay, maybe that was a bad comparison. However, say what you like about EL James, but her novels have plenty of sex in them. And you have... what... at least twenty scenes of dealings with demonic lovers? It would read like some lecher's ultimate fantasy were it not for a rather compelling story and rationale behind the orphan's love for her succubi captor." Youko began to mutter. "It's hard for me not to blush. This stuff would get anyone hot under the collar."

Sei's eyes narrowed. "You're supposed to appreciate those characters from a metaphorical angle. The story's not supposed to feel real. Not even the demoness. Only the protagonist, Yvonne, is real, and I'm trying to make the love she feels uncertain too. In my world, succubi come to women in dreams. Yvonne isn't even sure whether their affection is an illusion the demoness conjures to dupe her. And I'm trying to invoke a lot of medieval English fears superstitions about nightly visitations... you know, witches and the like. How the horrors of the night seduce their victims. There is some literary legitimacy to all the stuff I'm writing. "

"Sure. Gothic is a decent enough genre. But my point is that your metaphors, allusions, whatever - ooze sex. It's plastered on pretty much every chapter, if not every other page."

Sei grimaced. "I can't help it. For some reason, that's all I'm able to write. Aside from a somewhat coherent plot, that is. And this is just a draft. I've got quite a few more chapters to go."

"It's not bad," admitted Youko. "I'm just wondering where all this newfound... creative tension comes from."

Sei grunted, lifting the straw of her soft drink to her lips. Yes, perhaps Yumi was honest when she said she couldn't help Sei with the actual writing. But the emotions stirred within the wordsmith were indeed all that she needed to lose herself in a world of her own creativity and eloquence. Yes, this was what _Dreaming Snow_ would be about: a visceral, ferocious tale of destructive love between a human girl and a dark seductress of the night. The settings were interchangeable, languid, intentionally foggy and half-false - there was passionate, eloquent lovemaking across surreal, hazy dreamscapes of infernal crevices and craggy mountain peaks, mutual, warm, wet cunnilingus in the confines of the succubus's dungeons, seemingly pointless orgies with deformed demonesses sandwiching quivering mortal flesh -

"Bloody hell. Should I really be reading this in public?" Youko quietly set Sei's manuscript back on the table. She had to admit, Sei had a knack for writing good sex. She never thought the former White Rose had it in her to write such provocative, titillating, and frankly slightly disturbing gothic romance. This was the gothic and romantic tradition and all its heirs - Shelley, Byron, Stoker, Poe, Lovecraft - taken to their twisted, logical extremes. Honestly: where had Sei learned to write like this? "Unimaginable intimacy with the horrors of the night, melting in the most alluring darkness. Only you, Sei - only you. I should have expected a draft of this standard from you."

"Uh... thanks, I guess?"

"Craving... makes fantasies reality, huh...?" murmured Youko, eyes shining.

"Huh?" replied Sei warily. Somehow, she could sense what Youko meant, and she didn't like the foreboding implications.

"Nothing," said Youko quietly. She stood up to leave the diner, looking sharply down at Sei, who looked almost intimidated.

"I hope you'll have Yumi-chan over again soon."

Sei groaned as Youko departed. So that was what it was all about. She stared down at her half-eaten fish burger and cold french fries. It was difficult to eat such junk when all you could think of was eating - no wait: _entertaining_ - Rosa Chinensis.

_More fireworks between us then, I guess_, she thought glumly to herself, even as butterflies made her stomach turn.

* * *

This was the second week, and the second day, Yumi was due to visit. The Red Rose had pressed the doorbell, and Sei was quick to answer. The woman and the girl stared at each other, for several moments before the latter spoke up first. "Hey," said Yumi, her demeanour almost careless and bored as she stepped beyond Sei's threshold. Sei glanced back, gazing at Yumi's long brown tresses trailing behind her. "I'm going to take off my shoes, okay?"

_Day two? Day three? Whatever. I've lost track of her visits_. "Sure," acknowledged Sei, reaching out with her hands. "Can I take your jacket?" she asked, gesturing at the black Lillian school coat she used to wear all the time.

Yumi glanced up at Sei. A certain kind of light was swimming in her eyes. "It's okay. Thanks, Sei-san," she said softly.

Sei lowered her hands. "It's cool," she lied, as Yumi began to walk up the stairs to her room.

"How goes your progress?" asked Yumi, when they had both settled down. She sat back down on Sei's bed, her pleated skirt draping around her legs.

"Not too bad," said Sei, sitting down on her swivel chair and looking fondly at the grown girl. "I gotta admit, I had to think about you a lot so I could use you as a model in my novel."

Rosa Chinensis smiled (the first smile she had given Sei all day), and Sei felt relieved. "I showed a draft to Youko. She said it wasn't too bad," she said, encouraged.

"Well, then," responded Rosa Chinensis, raising an eyebrow expectantly. "Show me the draft too," she requested, extending her arm and an open hand.

"What?" blurted Sei, caught off-guard.

"If I'm going to be a sustainable source of inspiration, I need to know what you're writing so I can steer you on the right path," declared Yumi. She gestured with her hand again. "Come on, show me the draft."

Suddenly, Sei realized she had spoken prematurely. She had made a horrible mistake.

"Um. Show you my draft. To you."

_About a woman modelled after you being seduced by the darkest of the dark and the horrors of night. It's going to look so fucking obvious, _admitted the wordsmith to herself desperately. Oh, how the truth hurt.

_You're the fantasy, Rosa Chinensis. You're the fantasy that inspires me. You're the fantasy I've imprisoned in my forest of thorns, and stripped naked to have the darkness make love to you. Holy shit, I hope I didn't say that out loud._

Sei stared at Yumi, openly paralyzed. And to her utter bewilderment, and shame, she felt her cheeks beginning to redden.

She? Blushing?

Before Yumi?

Yumi's brown eyes glimmered, as if she knew. As if Sei was naked. "Oh dear, Sei-san," she whispered, flicking back her long brown hair, with the air of a chess champion checkmating a hapless challenger.

"We'll get nowhere if I can't get to know your... fantasy. Intimately. Why the discomfort? A story is but your fantasy, after all. Inked on paper, and shared with me."

* * *

**NEXT DRAFT: THE DARK AND TROUBLED STORY OF _DREAMING SNOW_...**


	4. Fourth Draft

**- THE WORDSMITH'S FLOWER -**

* * *

Hello and welcome back to The Wordsmith's Flower, a Yumi x Sei story written on request by a kind reader. The stakes of intimacy and emotions are upped as the incumbent Rosa Chinensis, third-year Fukuzawa Yumi, challenges Sei, a Gigantea alumni of Lillian, to show her the first draft of her novel, _Dreaming Snow_. As unresolved feelings and poignant memories bubble to the surface between the two young women, Sei the writer must face up to the young lady before her - to show her the writing she is so devoted to.

Secrets about to be confessed, and tensions will soon bubble to the surface, like an inflamed wound deepened, not healed, by time.

What is Yumi thinking? How will Sei grapple with the overwhelming tensions in their new relationship?

And what will Rosa Chinensis do when she finally encounters the famed storytelling of the erstwhile White Rose?

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my new chapter. :)

* * *

**- Fourth Draft -**

**- Dreaming Snow -**

* * *

_Lily Mountain Council Mansion_

Having loosened her necktie, Yumi fingered her way carefully and gingerly through the tea-and-coffee-stained pages. "So this is her draft," she mused quietly, taking a sip of Earl Grey. Ever since she had ascended to Sachiko's position, she found herself unconsciously adopting some of the mannerisms that she herself never dared to think she'd do? The delicate, queenly sips from the cup's rim, the careful, subtle stares, even the way she held her hands together. Now she held the large pile of paper sheets in her arms, their scribbles dappled by the after-school sun's orange sunlight. It was 4:52pm, and not even Shimako or Yoshino had stayed behind with her in the Council Mansion. It was getting much too late, but Yumi's afternoon had only started.

She was about to share Sei's secret.

The story was simple enough. An encounter with a monster, a demoness of the night, was surreal enough to make anyone question their sanity or their soundness of mind. This dance between dream and reality, between love and hate, memory and letting go, was Sei's inspiration for the draft in its present form. Yumi couldn't help feeling that the chiaroscuro of opposing abstracts was exactly what lurked behind her awkward relationship with Sei. It was like a wedge jamming the emotions that were about to burst forth between them.

Rosa Chinensis and Satou Sei couldn't dance around each other forever. Perhaps this novel wouldn't just land Sei a name in the publishing world. It would also hopefully dispel their muddled inauthenticity, and help them recover their honesty towards one another.

Yumi began to read. She turned to the page of the first chapter and read out aloud: "Is love real? Was her touch true, or the caress of a wishful thought?"

She stared at the eloquent text being shoved before her widening eyes. This was it. She was really diving into the deepest, darkest, most intimate corners of Sei's mind. And it was a lush world.

_Regent's Park is a veneer of civilization and culture imposed on rolling wilds. Everything here, from its memorials to the War and benches to the tenderly sculpted walkways and even the shape of its lake, is man-made illusion posing as nature. Just as emotions are all but illusions, like the muses and demons that come in those lonely dreams to touch and hold you_.

"England," murmured Yumi. She felt her heart gathering pace as she devoured the text. _The artist shivered as she turned her back on the waddling ducks, wrapping her overcoat tighter around herself. Her boot turned, pressing into the soil unassumingly towards home. __Tonight, as on many nights for the past year, she would be conquered._

"Conquest." How typical of Sei-san, thought Yumi to herself pensively. Conquest was Sei's watchword, she knew, and it was a bitter idea. Sei had conquered her long ago, and perhaps Yumi had expected the conqueror to enjoy her spoils. But she never did, and instead simply left her conquest to fend for herself, when the latter had come to depend on her.

Yumi pursed her lips. She was genuinely happy for Sei when the former White Rose graduated. But when she fretted in panic about how she would cope without Sei's care and guidance, she had meant it deeply and sincerely. Even today, as the celebrated Red Rose, the scar of abandonment had not quite healed.

Yes, that was it, realized Yumi. This was why this story meant so much to her personally. To them both.

She continued to read, immersed in the words of her mentor.

_The artist rented a one-bedroom ﬂat across Baker Street - no mean feat given her_ _calling as an artist. Having an apartment in the area meant that she was as_ _successful a surrealist as one could realistically expect. Perhaps her reveries at the_ _park, and in her work, had spilled over into more intimate moments, like the nights_ _when she slept with no one, for she had no boyfriend or husband. But her sweating,_ _writhing, alight form did not toss and turn amongst the bedsheets alone. That was_ _the point._

_It would only be twelve o'clock. The onset of the witching hour would bring a voice ragged, almost husky, but light and high enough to indicate her femininity. And it would have been an somewhat childish pitch, had it not been punctured by the frequent slurring that so enthralled the artist. _

_At those quiet but smouldering invitations by the raven-haired woman from the nightmarish dreamscape, __the _red-tressed artist felt her heart haunted and uneasy, like angry waves dashed against rocks shaped into jagged mountains, on which the daimon carved and cleaved away at trembling ﬂesh, searing her into sensual servility with the promise of more, more, more.

_Where the fires and desires are one. _

Yumi heard herself sighing hoarsely, but she was too engrossed in the story to notice or care. Her teacup and Earl Grey stood to one side, still half-full but already forgotten.

_Her nights with this unearthly visitor were punctuated with sharp gasps - be they on_ _her bed or high above some rocky hill in a realm unknown to the world of daylight,_ _she neither knew nor cared. They shared gasps of excited surprise and grateful_ _climax, pleased and pleasured to perfection. Across those forbidden, taboo hells_ _that opened into sinister, dank dungeons were naked bodies, hanging, rolling,_ _making lust and birthing yearning._

_The artist never knew the daimon's name. All that she knew when the other held_ _her, was that she could not and did not want to extract herself from these dreams,_ _more surreal than any painting she could ever sell._

"What is this?" whispered Rosa Chinensis to herself. "Is this your sensuality, but on paper?" She pressed her thighs closer together, and she gasped briefly.

_The daimon continued to take her on odysseys. The artist had already forgotten_ _when her journeys across those yawning, infernal crevices had begun. Again and again it happened, and the artist no longer cared why or how or how often she_ _touched her. She just wanted to return her passionate embrace and scream her_ _ﬁery, delighted appreciation._

Feeling herself stirring, she readjusted herself on the chair, staring at the erotic words in the manuscript.

_But tonight would be different, as the naked artist reclined in her otherworldly l__over's arms, watching murky whirlpools and ﬂakes of snow that sprinkled across_ _the amorphous wastelands around them._ _The rumbling of ethereal volcanoes could be heard in the blurry distance._

The story continued, and she couldn't put it down.

_For the very ﬁrst time, the succubus spoke, kissing the artist's warm forehead. The_ _artist stirred, surprised by the siren purr. "I have to leave your dreams now."_ _The artist could not believe it. What was this, so sudden and hurtful? How could_ _such a (far from) divine lover wound with such an abrupt, hasty declaration?_

_"Too much, too many times, and you will lose everything. I've satiated myself with_ _you, but if I become greedy, you will suffer: perhaps even die." The daimon's eyes_ _were suddenly lonely; no more did they shine with mischievous lust and the_ _conﬁdence of a demonic seductress. The artist could see her for who she was - a_ _sad night-creature who consumed bodies amidst melded dreamscapes of lover_ _and beloved. But Lilith loved this woman, and had no appetite to devour her._

What a bizarre, strange twist this was. Yumi suddenly giggled shyly to herself. Was Sei's publishing firm really going to accept such an outlandish novel?

_"Don't go," pleaded the artist. "Only you have loved me amidst the languid nights __and uncertain hours of the moon." She clutched her Other in desperation. "If you __wish to consume me entirely, I'd consider it a life well-lived and a death well-chosen." __The daimon had never offered her tongue to speak, only to please. But now she __had uttered something at last, and they were words of sad farewell that broke the __artist's heart. "At least tell me your name. We've had each other for so many times, __for so long, and I don't even know what to call you in our moments of passion." _

_The daimon shook her head. "If you know or speak a hellish monster's name, you __will be cursed."_

_The artist wept and swore bitterly in protest as the daimon reluctantly released her_ _shaking body. And with the departure of her gentle, scorching touch, also went her_ _visions of the thundering, rolling, crackling circles of the Underworld._

_She had seduced her and loved her for such a long time. Now she was leaving her._

_It wasn't fair._

Yumi suddenly felt her eyes prickling. Yes, she knew, this was it. These words were exactly how she felt but could never express so eloquently. Her heart was filled with a clarity hitherto undiscovered. "Sei-san," she whispered, voice trembling. She was no longer smiling or giggling. Her hands clutched at the paper tightly, like she had been told a horrible truth she'd been avoiding for many years. "Is this what you've wanted to say to me... all this time?"

Her jaw was tight, and her teeth clenched tightly as she blinked away the tears of hurt inflicted yesteryear. "Is this why you chose me to be your inspiration for this cruel story? But she couldn't stop turning the pages, and the drama unfolded in a climax that Yumi felt would be seared in her imagination forever:

_As the tossing and turning sleeper awoke from her dreams, the artist realized that her_ _sweating, clammy face was bathed in tears. There was no body left to hold, no_ _more warm form to kiss and worship._ _The woman of night visitations, those unsure hours of unreality, had gone. The dreams, once so strong and saturated with Lilith's sensual presence, slowly,_ _but surely, faded away. The tormented worlds of hell were closed to the artist, and though she_ _was now free from the succubus's curse, no one had asked her if she ever even_ _wanted it to end._

_Why had the seductress left? Was it because of guilt? Or the fear that one day, the_ _artist would fall into the abyss of the succubus's hunger and never return to the_ _living? The artist would never know. All she does know is that she still feels the_ _daimon's hands over her skin, gripping her ﬂesh, slipping tenderly and carefully __within, so that it neither hurt nor scarred but delighted instead. She still paints and_ _makes a modest living, even though she never knew the name of her beloved - life_ _still feels as solid to her as the paintbrush in her ﬁngers, but far less real than Lilith's_ _kisses and taste. That delicious taste, a fragrance of a night dweller. Her haunting_ _hands will remain around her forever, legs shaking, hips quivering, even if -_

_And this is a big if - Those hands were ever real._

That was the last sentence. That was the end of the story. Stunned, inwardly reeling, Yumi slowly lowered the manuscript, her hands clammy and her throat dry.

She was shaking.

What had this novel done to her?

"Sei," she croaked loudly, her heart painfully cracking in two.

* * *

It was almost six o'clock. Sei took a deep breath as she opened the door to the Yamayurikai common room. How long had it been she stepped into this structure and set foot in the room? She felt a bit like an intruder. "Yumi," she called, walking in. "You told me to pick you up around this time. You shouldn't stay much longer. Come on, let's go. I'll take you to dinner. There's a pretty decent ramen place I've been having for the past month." Her eyes fell on Yumi's flushed and invigorated face. Her eyes were shining mysteriously, and her entire demeanour... somehow looked even more alluring than before. "Erm," said Sei awkwardly, "you don't need to give me feedback about my book just yet. When you're ready, or when you swing by my place again, you can tell me whether my grammar was clumsy, or if I need to refine the delivery - "

"Tea?" interjected Rosa Chinensis amidst the rambling, her eyes shining with a strange light as she stared at Sei's short hair, at her white shirt and jeans.

"You're the Red Rose," argued Sei, catching herself quickly walking towards the window. "You don't need to bother serving a humble visitor like me." She passed by Yumi's chair. Yumi stared down at the table as she did, not saying a word. She leaned against the windowpane, staring out at the trees, shrubs, and lawn before turning to look at Rosa Chinensis.

They looked at each other for several long moments.

Yumi flicked back her long brunette tresses. "Not too bad," she declared. "Very good, in fact. I really enjoyed it."

"Thanks," murmured Sei, not sure what else to utter. "It's hard for someone who's never been to a Western country to write about their themes and mythology. But I thought I'd give it a go. I'm an English major, after all."

Yumi slowly stood up, her long brown hair flowing freely like Sachiko's. Sei felt her heart skip a beat as she watched Yumi place her slender fingers on her draft. Was she always this tall? When did she start looking her eye-to-eye? Didn't she used to look down at her innocent face?

_You're catching up too quickly_, thought the wordsmith desperately.

"It sounds like you're telling your readers something that you've suppressed for a long time in this story," mused Yumi, staring at her pointedly. "Through Lilith. Through your protagonist, the artist."

"Like?" challenged Sei.

"Like about yourself. It was like meeting a new person as I read this," murmured Yumi cryptically. "It's as if I really did say goodbye to Satou Sei and never saw her again. This is how I've felt like ever since that day you called me. And now I know why my heart's been so uneasy all this time."

"Uneasy? What do you mean?" prompted the writer, keeping her best poker face. It was cracking, though. She knew she was looking uncomfortable and deeply lonely, and Yumi knew it.

"Uneasy about how you still feel about me. Unsure about whether you'd want to hold and fondle me again, like in the old days." Rosa Chinensis crossed her arms, completely calm and almost nonchalant. "I was wondering something along the lines of whether you'd be willing to let me lick you out."

In shock at the proposal, the former White Rose shrugged helplessly, staring at Yumi with betrayed, weak eyes. She crossed her arms defensively. "Or something similar," shrugged Rosa Chinensis, "but that was just my feeling when I was reading your book."

Sei felt her already coarsening voice choke up at the back of her dry throat. "I... I didn't know you wanted _that_," she said meekly. "I'm pretty surprised you'd even say something like that, Yumi-chan."

"Don't call me Yumi-chan ever again," demanded Rosa Chinensis suddenly, stunning her crushed _senpai_ into silence, "because it's not going to work on me anymore. Anyway, maybe I'm misinterpreting all those sex scenes from you. Okay, forget the licking out - maybe you just want a drink with me?" pressed Yumi mercilessly and sarcastically. "Come on. What else would you have been trying to tell me? I'm not stupid."

Sei couldn't speak. But perhaps she shouldn't have been so naive. She knew this had been a long time coming, and Yumi knew it. They both knew it. "I don't understand," declared Yumi, her voice growing frustrated and angry. Sei almost felt frightened by the Red Rose's wrath and ire, but it was her words that stung most. She gestured at the draft on the table violently. "I'm the artist... aren't I?" cried Rosa Chinensis, who looked like she wanted to burst forward and clutch Sei in her arms. But there was an invisible wall between them, a barrier that the novel had implicitly acknowledged. "And you... you, Sei-san, are the succubus Lilith. Beautiful, carefree, lonely - why are you so honest and generous with others when you can't even let yourself tell us your most intimate yearnings? Why is there such a difference between the way you nurture and guide us and the way you live? That's what I hate about you." Her voice grew into a shrill yell. "Shimako-san would want to know. _I_ want to know!"

"I can only express a false self. An inauthentic self. A fake self. My honesty has rarely been rewarded," stammered a defeated Sei, swallowing nervously. "I don't know what to do with us. I never did. You always belonged to her. And I know that I can't belong to anyone." She hugged herself, wishing she could disappear into the wooden floorboards of the Lily Mountain Council Mansion. "If I can't belong to even Shimako... how could I bring myself to heap all my baggage on you!" she sputtered, losing her composure for the first time in a long time.

Yumi smiled bitterly, still rooted to the spot, like they had both frozen in time - frozen in each other's paths since the day Sei left the school. "If only you were the demoness that the artist loved. Her love was so real, meant for the artist alone. But I'm not sure I can say the same of your love, Sei," she declared.

The novelist's heart melted and her knees weakened at the lack of an honorific in Yumi's address. Where had she learnt to say all the right things? Her eyes tentatively, shyly, made their way around Yumi's slender back, around that deep-green school uniform she had once touched so long ago.

"God help us. We have such a long way to go," said Yumi bittersweetly, slumping visibly. She was emotionally exhausted. "It took a fucking erotic fantasy novel to get you to tell me honestly how you really feel about me."

Sei stared at the floor, ashamed beyond words.

"Do you ever plan to grow your hair long again?" came Yumi's question, and her voice had returned to its usual, gentle and light quality.

Sei was too drained to be shocked at Yumi's incredible, foul-mouthed outburst. "No," she replied. "Growing it back is the last thing I want anyone to see."

"Yeah? Well, I look forward to the day you start growing them for me again." Having calmed down, Yumi smirked, and Sei remembered that this was not the Yumi of two years ago. Rosa Chinensis turned away and began to walk around the table towards the door. The sun had set and the stars were beginning to glimmer in the sky outside their window. "It's Friday and I'm still at school. How miserable."

She glanced back at Sei, her mature, fearless eyes reflecting Sei's vulnerable expression. "It's going to happen. Going out for a drink, at least."

Looking up for once, Sei met Yumi's irises. She couldn't speak, but her mild nod was all that Yumi wanted.

Maybe now, a bit of the healing could begin. Perhaps a bit of lost time could be regained.

Smiling, Rosa Chinensis closed the door behind her, leaving the novelist to her own thoughts.

* * *

Kei had never seen Sei work so late into the night, not even on her usual better runs. "Come on, woman. You have to get some rest. It's ten past four. You haven't slept a wink," she half-yawned, peering past the slightly opened door and peering at Sei's hunched back in the fluorescent glow of the desk lamp. "You just barricaded yourself in here right after dinner. And at least put some pyjamas on. You look so weird writing in just your undies."

"Shush, Kei. Please." Sei's short reply sounded genuinely apologetic. "Can you give me some time to myself, just this time? Come the dawn..." She licked her lips, her eyes affixed to the warm glow of her laptop. "Come the sunrise, I'll be coming up with a second draft. A better draft. The one I'm going to refine and submit to my publisher."

Kei closed her eyes and quietly shut Sei's door, smiling to herself.

_It's been a long time since I saw you so interested in something_.

Sei continued to scribble feverishly onto her notes (which were piling up on her already small desk) and tap away at her keyboard. Soon, she would be taking the best of her copious writing and transcribing it onto her laptop. She would head downtown and to the library. She was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Thanks to Yumi-chan - no, _Yumi -_ she knew what she needed to do.

This was going to be her opus.

* * *

**NEXT DRAFT: LET THE INSPIRATION TAKE FLIGHT.**

* * *

A/N: Dear readers, thank you for checking this chapter out and forgive my long time in uploading it. :) Work has been as busy and stressful as usual, but the bigger reason was that I had to develop two storylines for one chapter - the addition being Sei's very own story. :) Anyway, see you next time!


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